All posts tagged "android"

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

"Retina-X Studios, LLC announced today the release of MobileSync Pro, a cross-platform mobile phone freeware for Android, BlackBerry, iPhone and Windows smartphones. MobileSync Pro is the most versatile and feature-rich mobile software utility yet to come out from Retina-X Studios, which has bundled a 4-in-1 solution by incorporating backup, theft-protection and file sharing solutions, besides its key function as an all-purpose sync solution."

Most mobile phones have built-in synchronization for your contacts, email, calendar, etc. But what happens if you want to change platforms. How do you move your data if you want to ditch your iPhone to try out Windows Phone 7? Or move from BalckBerry to Android? In most cases this would not be an easy process. MobileSync Pro is a free application that can do this for you. It also adds the capability of sharing your data with others. They offer 200 MB of free storage. They are also currently working to offer support for Windows Phone 7 and other platforms that should be finalized in the coming weeks. Curious? Check them out here.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Its always an interesting proposition when your sometimes alliance partners in Motorola and Verizon indicate that your latest and greatest isn't so great. Microsoft found themselves in that very position today when Motorola and Verizon both seemed to insinuate that the Windows Phone 7 OS has failed or at least wasn't living up to expectations in interviews with CNET at Mobile World Congress today.

"I do want a strong third OS out there. It gives the carriers more flexibility and balances the interests of all the parties. But I still have doubts whether Microsoft will get the traction they are hoping for with Windows Phone 7."

Tony Melone, CTO at Verizon Communications indicated as such today. Mr, Melone went onto to state:

"I don't think Verizon needs the Nokia and Microsoft relationship. Right now the three OS players we see for our network are Android, Apple, and RIM"

Chris Wyatt, Corporate Vice President of Software and Services Product Management chimed in with comments from the same show:

"We would like an opportunity to create unique value and we don't feel we could with a closed platform"

Certainly over the years, Microsoft has established great relationship with both Verizon and Motorola, but the statements from Verizon and Motorola today seem to indicate that Microsoft has made their beds with these two partners, however, I think there could be another side to this story. Read more...

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

"T-Mobile USA, Inc. today announced a Valentine's offer to fall in love with. On Friday, February 11 and Saturday, February 12, all T-Mobile phones, even the fastest 4G smartphones running on America's largest 4G network, will be offered for free at T-Mobile retail stores with qualifying plan on two-year contract."

Oh me, oh my! It's hard to see a downside to this deal, since you'd have to sign a contract to get a carrier based phone anyway. If this comes off, the only thing I think might turn people off is network congestion from the potntial flood of new users, much like what happened to AT&T when the iPhone first came out. What with Verizon getting the iPhone 4, this is a great riposte from T-Mobile - though I can't imagine how the shareholders might feel about such a hefty potential layout. But that hardly matters to consumers, right? Let us know if you're planning on grabbing one - and how big or small the crowds are.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

"The resulting analysis shows that for customers using an app for the first time between January and March, about 22% of them never open the app again. In the second and third quarters, the rate of one-time usage is flat at 26%. One-time usage grows to over 28% in the fourth quarter, but some of those customers may still use the app again in early 2011."

Admit it - you've used an app once and then never bothered to click again. We all do it, although it's interesting to see the data presented here. I suspect we aren't seeing significant differences between those rates above, and I also wonder how much of this depends on app segment. One thing is for certain, it's a lot nicer to have app stores now that let us try before we buy and give us comments and ratings. I recall my early WinMo days of "that looks cool, buy it". I probably spent around $100 (over 3 years) on apps I never used more than 3 times.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

"HTC will unveil two new Facebook branded mobile phones next month, City A.M. has learned. The Taiwanese manufacturer will launch an official tie-up with Mark Zuckerberg's $50bn (£31.6bn) social network at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. The high-end smartphones will be the first to bear the Facebook branding and colours."

Rumoured to be running a version of Android, my first thought was "Well, if this thing is going to be the official Facebook phone, then what does that mean for Windows Phone 7, which has the deepest integration of Facebook to date?". If this phone is pitched as a phone that isn't overly geeky, and more importantly has a cheaper data plan than a full-blown uber-Android phone, I believe there's a large number of people who are currently in the feature phone segment that would trade up to this phone. One things for sure: if there really is an official Facebook Phone, the other phone makers are going to have to work harder on their depth of their feature integration.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

For many, the HTC HD2 represents the pinnacle of Windows Mobile devices. The amazing hardware (for its time) has allowed hackers to boot Android, Linux, and now Windows Phone 7. The developers haven't stopped there, and have most recently discovered a way to partition an SD card in such a way as to dual-boot both Android and Windows Phone 7. Hit the link for a video tutorial on the process of setting up the environment. As always, do so at your own risk.

Monday, January 17, 2011

"'We've done a lot of work with Microsoft over the years. We've launched a number of 6.xx products, but we made a decision not to bring a product to market in the first wave. We absolutely maintain to keep an open mind towards Windows Phone 7. We continue to engage in a relationship with Microsoft, but we haven't made any concrete announcement about when and how we would introduce Windows Phone 7 into the portfolio.'"

That sounds awfully like corporate speak for - "We didn't do that well with Windows Mobile, so we're sitting this one out until it's clear Windows Phone 7 is a hit". Can't blame SE for their attitude on this, as they simply don't have the resources to take a chance on an unproven OS, even if it does have Microsoft behind it. To be fair though, SE took so long bringing the Xperia X1 to the market, it was a non-starter out of the gate. And if WP7 does turn out popular, they'll be late to this party too.

Friday, December 31, 2010

"If you got an iPad as a gift during the holidays, you certainly weren't alone. In a recent poll of holiday gift recipients, iPads accounted for a full 22.7% of all gadget or hardware gifts, making iPads the single largest category in our gift poll, outstripping the nearest runner-up by nearly 14% of votes. That runner-up was Amazon's Kindle - not surprising considering that the Kindle is the best-selling product in Amazon's history."

It's a relatively small sampling size - less than 2400 votes, and only from people who read Mashable - but among the geek-set, there are a couple of stand-out points: the iPad was the #1 gift, more people got Macs (60%) than Windows machines (40%), Android phones let the way in the smartphone category with a hefty 50.3% figure (iPhones were 30%), but Windows Phone 7 devices at 10.3% just eeked out Blackberry devices (9.4%). Not bad for a brand new platform that most people still haven't heard about! Lastly, the Xbox/Kinect one-two punch clobbered the PS3 with a 54.3% figure versus only 11.9% for the PS3. The Kinect really is driving the Xbox 360 to new heights of popularity!

Monday, December 20, 2010

The HTC HD2 (aka Leo) was perhaps the ultimate Windows Mobile device - the fact that hardware on the market has barely advanced since it was released a year ago shows how advanced it was for the time. That also means the HD2 can handle the current crop of operating systems: case in point, a forum member of XDA Developers has managed to port the latest Android build (specifically 2.3.1) onto an HD2. Some stuff still isn't working (camera and contacts sync for instance), but most of the rest of the hardware is. Fancy a try? Let us know if you do! Just remember to back up your data first.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

"In the slew of Gingerbread news coming out about devices getting Gingerbread, here's one we hadn't thought about yet. It looks like some of the brilliant minds over at xda-developers have gotten Gingerbread ported over to the HTC HD2, an originally Windows Mobile device. We've given you a tutorial on running Android on your HD2 before, but this is, of course, the newest and greatest you can get."

Should you happen to own (and I'm sure love) an HTC HD2, and you are thinking it's getting a little dated, you might just be able to get a new lease on life for it by loading on the Android Gingerbread release. How would you do that? Well, Talk Android is reporting that the technological wizards over at xda-developers have performed the feat of porting the latest Android version onto the HTC HD2. Visual evidence above suggests that they have indeed been successful. The HD2 is a solid and well-liked handset, and if Windows Mobile is working well for you then you might want to pass on this possibility. But, if you are adventurous type, this might just be a fun thing to try out.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

"According to October 2010 data from The Nielsen Company, 29.7 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers now own smartphones that run full operating systems. The most popular smartphones are the Apple iPhone and RIM Blackberry, which are caught in a statistical dead heat with 27 percent of smartphone market share in the U.S. Twenty-two percent of smartphone owners have devices with the Android operating system"

Interesting - last I'd heard the Feature Phone market still had about 10% higher saturation, so it looks like the era of the Smartphone will soon be upon a much wider spread of Americans than ever before seen. So what are your predictions for the other circle? I see Green + Blue taking up some space soon to be vacated by Red, and perhaps even eating into Grey!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

"Next year, Samsung will introduce 15 to 20 new smart-phone models using Android, Windows, and Brada operating systems. For every 50 smart phones using Windows, it will make 24 using Android and five using Brada."

While Samsung has put together a pretty impressive lineup of Android devices, it's Windows Phone 7 that they appear to be targeting in 2011, with approximately 50% more WP7 devices than Android coming out in 2011. So is it that they see WP7 as a superior platform, or just one they want to be as heavily invested in as they are already with Android?

Friday, November 12, 2010

"Without a doubt, the myTouch 4G would be my choice if I actually had to choose between the two. I don't have to choose though. I intend to use them both. I want to watch how Windows Phone 7 progresses and need to have a Windows Phone 7 device to be able to follow along with the progress. I am going to retire my Zune 120 and use the HD7 as my Zune...I am going to use the myTouch 4G as my daily driver."

Chris Leckness over at Gotta Be Mobile has an interesting piece up discussing the battle for his SIM card - pitting two of the hottest phones out right now against each other. In the end he finds a nice compromise in this very comprehensive piece discussing both phones. Check it out and see what you'd want.

As for me... Well, I'm thinking maybe a T-Mobile G2 and a MyTouch 4G might have to join my HTC HD7 just so I can fully compare all 3 of them!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

"All too often, the question isn't whether a particular device is great, it's whether the manufacturer and carrier have committed to upgrading it -- quite often to a version of its operating system that hasn't officially been announced. It's a recipe for confusion and paralysis among consumers that really don't have a great reason to be putting off their purchases -- they just want a reasonable assurance that their new phones aren't going to be regarded as "obsolete" in six or nine months. And why shouldn't they?"

A really thought-provoking piece from Engadget's Chris Ziegler - he proposes that, since smartphone hardware has largely plateaued in terms of baseline features, it's time to for software to take on a larger role in the ecosystem. Part of that is for companies to charge for new versions of an operating system. Myself, I'd have no problem at all with this - assuming, and that's the key word here, that operating system updates were delivered in a reliable manner that would work a variety of hardware...and would be unencumbered by mobile operator bloatware. We pay for new operating systems on our desktops and laptops, so why not on our phones? Vote in the poll that Engadget has set up - and sound off here on why you would, or would not, be willing to pay for a new OS for your phone.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

"Let's face it: here at Maximum PC, we're all about competition. It's in our blood. From CPUs to video cards to motherboards to sandwich shops, we live to pit like products (or foodstuffs) against one another. In fact, we recently published an all out showdown between four warring phones and mobile platforms in our quarterly Maximum Tech issue which we're sure you read. That story (as many of our published stories sometimes do) encouraged us to dig a little deeper, and perform a little more testing. The cameras attached to these complex microcomputers are becoming increasingly powerful-many, in fact, are fully capable of taking very sharp and professional looking photos. But are these phones capable of holding their own against more sophisticated equipment? And which phone does it best?"

The above shot, despite being of cute little Android robots, was taken with an iPhone 4. The article it came from, over at Maximum PC pits many of the top phones against each other specifically in the area of camera quality. Thinking of buying a phone and the camera is a big factor? Then take a look and be informed!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

"I don't make a lot of predictions, but here's one: Windows Phone 7 will succeed, and it will force everyone else to rethink the way they design phone software. How do I know? This week we received two Android devices to review, and next to Microsoft's shiny new OS they look boring. More important, when I talked to five people of varying ages who had seen what Windows Phone 7 could do, all said they would consider buying one-and none of them currently own smart phones."

Mark Spoonauer of Laptopmag.com has an editorial on Windows Phone 7 that's pretty positive on Microsoft's new OS. What I find interesting is that Google's Android has been singled out as the competition (what? is the iPhone irrelevant already?), and the value proposition will be a superior UI for Microsoft and price for Google. Are you guys thinking the same way? How many of you have changed your minds about Windows Phone 7?

Friday, September 3, 2010

"BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Sept. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Wireless today announced it will be expanding its portfolio of prepaid offerings to include a new 3G Prepaid data package that lets customers access unlimited data on select 3G Smartphones and Multimedia phones for $30 monthly access. Multimedia phone customers also have the option of selecting a new $10 monthly data package for 25 MB per month ($.20/MB overage). These new prepaid data packages will be available in Verizon Wireless Communications Store today and online at www.verizonwireless.com beginning Sept. 28."

Verizon still has Windows Mobile devices (Although perhaps not for long), yet those don't get in on this $30 a month prepaid unlimited data offer. I'm not sure what their reason for snubbing WM here is - I can't imagine it costs them any more money to add it to the other smartphones in their line, and perhaps they just didn't mention the WM devices in the press release. Perhaps some brave soul should test it out when it becomes available!

However it looks like most, if not all, of the Android offerings do (Oh yea, those blackberries and palm devices are eligible too...). Not a bad price if you just want a non-contract data device lying around. Anyone Android-fan going to take Verizion up on their deal?

Thursday, September 2, 2010

I'm thrilled to announce the newest member of the Thoughts Media family: Android Thoughts. As you can guess, this site will be covering Android in all it's forms - phones, slates, etc. The site is being led by none other than our very own Jon Westfall; he'll be handling all editorial duties on the site, similar to how Apple Thoughts works. Android has exploded in popularity over the past 12 months, surpassing even the mighty iPhone in terms of daily activations according to some. It made sense to cover Android as part of what we do here at Thoughts Media, but I wanted to find someone who was passionate and interested in all things Android...and that person is Jon Westfall. Please go read his welcome message on the site to find out how Android Thoughts was born - and subscribe to the RSS feed and Twitter stream. And, above all, if you're interested in Android as a platform, contribute, share, comment, and become a part of that new community.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

"According to Business Insider, Microsoft says that Android's hidden manufacturing costs are much higher than their own $15-per-unit Windows Phone 7 license. They have some very good points, but others are not so good. Here are their arguments..."

Go check out the article and tell me what you think - is Microsoft right? Are the costs of a "free" operating system higher than most people think? I think there's definitely something to be said for an off-the-shelf experience that doesn't require customization to work properly, but thus far, the deficiencies in Android's offering hasn't exactly been slowing down the adoption rate...